In networking, paradigms referred to as Information Centric Networking (ICN), Content Centric Networking (CCN), and Named Data Networking (NDN) have been developed. CCN and NDN may be regarded as specific approaches within the more general ICN paradigm. By way of example, CCN is being developed within IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) by the ICNRG (ICN Research Group), and details on this work can be found in CCN as defined in ICNRG Internet-Drafts “CCNx Semantics”, Version 01, January, 2016, and “CCNx Messages in TLV Format”, Version 01, January 2016.
Instead of focusing on connecting communicating endpoints (as traditional networking protocols, such as IP (Internet Protocol), ICN focuses on a content object to be retrieved. In ICN, networking messages are routed based on globally unique names of content objects, rather than on endpoint addresses referring to physical boxes.
In this way, ICN may benefit from in distributing the same information to multiple places in the network. Since routers may cache content objects besides forwarding them, content objects do not need to traverse the entire network every time someone becomes interested in them—a local cached copy suffices. Another advantage with ICN is the aggregation of interests for a given content object. For example, in the case of a flash crowd event where suddenly thousands of endpoints are requesting the same content the source will only need to be reached by one request for the content, and all other requests may be served from the caches of routers along the path towards the source. Since these benefits is also relevant to cellular networks, it may be desirable to enhance a cellular network with CCN/ICN capabilities.
However, enhancement of a cellular network with ICN/CCN capabilities is not straightforward because in a cellular network an end device, also referred to as UE (user equipment) may move between different access nodes. If the UE has issued an ICN request for a content object and moved to another access node, the existing ICN/CCN mechanisms might not be sufficient to deliver the content object to the UE when it becomes available.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques which allow for efficient utilization of ICN mechanisms in a cellular network.